talking about computers and design
by Ralph Grabowski

Oct 29, 2013

They are heart-tugging stories, where an inventor approaches a large corporation with his idea, only to see it "stolen" and marketed by the giant corp (and its deep legal pockets) as its own. While a story today in Israeli business newspaper Globe carries the headline of Architect Eli Attia: Google stole my life's work, the story may well be different.

Last week, we learned that Google X spun off Genie to Vannevar Technology, a company that some media outlets quickly anointed as "a technology that could earn the company $120 billion a year." See http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000886261. On Twitter, I immediately scoffed at the revenue number, after seeing how the new company's Web site is as exciting as a fog bank. (Reality check: Google itself makes only $50 billion a year.)

From a future $120-billion-a-year corporation, this is all we get for a Web site

Today, the fog bank lifts partially, as reader Rick Feineis alerts us to the plight of architect Eli Attia who says he invented the technology as his life's work, presented it to Google, only to have Google X and Vannevar take the idea as their own.

Mr Attia has begun a Web page to provide more information, with the title Google & Me, of which he says "Title inspired by Michael Moore" [koff, koff]. The site is badly designed, hard to read due to its use of frames (who uses frames anymore?), but it it he admits Google X offered him 15%, which he turned down. Later, he was pushed out of the Genie project, after which Google X offered to arbitrate. He says that Google executives has so far ignored his direct letters to them.

Mar 17, 2013

Waking up my computer this morning, I was surprised that my email software had problems overnight downloading my email. It complained the disk was full. Odd, because the hard drive is a 1TB drive.

I emptied the Recycle Bin, moved some movie files to another drive, and uninstalled some software, but this freed up a mere 15GB. I needed to pinpoint what what causing the drive to fill up. I found Folder Size by MindGems, downloaded it, installed it, and started it up. The software shows you the largest folders, and then lets me quickly drill down to find the largest subfolders.

Looking at the results, I found a very large folder named "Screen Captures." It held 105GB of files, 11% of the hard drive's capacity. Examining further, I determined it was created by Picasa. Now this was strange, because I don't use Picasa for screen grabs, nor did I know it even had the function.

Checking online, I found out from LifeHacker that whenever I take a screen grab while Picasa is running, Picasa unhelpfully keeps a copy in the C:\Users\<username>\Pictures\Picasa\Screen Captures folder. (You can also get to the folder through Libraries | Pictures | My Pictures | Picasa | Screen Captures.) As a technical writer, I take hundreds of screen grabs (using WinSnap) and so this folder held 18,415 files, starting in April 2009.

Worse, Picasa saves the screen grabs in BMP format, meaning they are uncompressed, meaning each file takes up the most amount of space it can -- rather than in a compressed format. Most files are 6MB.

Worse, I took a single screen grab with WinSnap and watched the folder as Picasa made copy after copy. Within seconds, there were two dozen files in the folder of one screen grab. No wonder the hard drive filled up! Quickly, I exited Picasa, and erased the newly added files. Clearly, there is a serious bug in a seriously bad feature.

And then it gets really worse. The really bad news is that there is no way to turn off this unnecessary function in Picasa. LifeHacker provides two workarounds: make sure Picasa is not running when doing screen grabs, or change the folder so that Picasa cannot save files to it. Here are the steps, which I updated for Windows 7:

After doing these steps, I checked the folder as I took a screengrab with Picasa running. No files appeared.

I was in a mad dash yesterday to finish updating an ebook, taking screen grabs like crazy, working from 9am through to 8pm. I am only glad that the full disk problem occurred after I completed the project, and not during it.

Aug 22, 2012

Someone recently tried to use an application to sign in to your Google Account, ralphgrabowski@gmail.com. We prevented the sign-in attempt in case this was a hijacker trying to access your account. Please review the details of the sign-in attempt:

The solution, Google says, is for me to change my password. Problem is that in this single-signon (and leave automatically signed in) world, I would have to arrange to change the password in dozens of areas: multiple Web browsers on my many computers, including Android phone and tablets.

People recoiled when Microsoft first suggested a single login (and password) for all its properties. Google was much more sly: first just for GMail, and then slowly it brought the water to boil spreading the single UID to eventually all its properties -- without us frogs particularly noticing.

Even before this German attempted to break into my Google account, I had thought of changing my password (it is fairly robust already), and then realized just how long the task would take.

May 03, 2012

One of the reasons we should prefer GMail, Google tells us, is because of "Lots of space."

Over 10242.795151 megabytes (and counting) of free storage.

Sure, 10GB is a lot of storage. The reason for the large amount is that Google hopes you will store all your email and associated documents so that it can comb through them and then present you with "relevant" ads -- ads from which it makes 90%+ of its revenues.

I wondered, however, about the amount after the decimal point, the "and counting" part. How quickly does it increase, and by how much.

The Amount of Increase

It's the last digit that clicks over, about 3-5 units with each increment. The last decimal place represents 1 byte, and so the storage amount increases by 3-5 bytes.

The Rate of Increase

I took a screen grab, and then started a 5-minute timer, following which I took a second screen grab. The storage space increased by 1,216 bytes in five minutes -- or 14.25KB/hour. In a year, the storage space should be up by 122MB, roughly.

It will take eight years before your GMail account grows by another gigabyte.

In summary, the changing number display is only socialogically interesting.

Mar 10, 2012

I purchased some of Google's 25c rental movies ("The September Issue" and "The King's Speech" so far), and got them to download onto my Android.

But my wife would like to see them, too, and so I tried to figure out how to view them on my computer with its bigger screen. Google says I can watch them on Androids or PCs, but doesn't say how.

I played around with some and by making mistakes finally figured it out. After you pay for the movie rental, you can watch it on your PC (or Mac) like this:

Go to YouTube

Login with your Google account (like Gmail username and password).

Click Purchases (on the left hand side)

4. On the purchases page is the list of Active Rentals. Click the image of the movie to get to the Watch Now page.

You can watch the movies as many times as you want during the 48 hours after you first start watching it. You have 30 days in which to start watching it.

But Don't Download ItThe instructions listed above don't work when you have downloaded the movie to your Android device.

(You may need to update to Google Play, the new name for the Market, and install Google Movie to watch them on your Android.)

The Workaround: Watching on PC

Here is how to watch the movie on your PC even after downloading it to your Android, something else Google doesn't tell you.

On your Android device, go to Google Movies.

Choose My Rentals.

Press the Menu button, and then choose Manage Offline.

Tap the green Pin icon that appears next to the movie. It turns gray.

Click Done.

You can now watch the movie on your computer through YouTube.

Changing Your Mind: Back to Android

My wife and I began watching the movie running in Chrome Web browser on the Apple Mac Mini computer running in our entertainment room. (The computer is hooked up to a projector, which displays movies on our 100" screen.) But the Mac and Chrome broke down repeatedly, every five-ten minutes -- even after I set YouTube resoution down to 360 -- less data to stream. (I tried Safari, but it lacks the Flash plug-in, and I couldn't figure out where it was at Apple's plug-in site.) My wife was more patient than me, but after a half-dozen crashes, she agreed to try watching the rest of the movie on my Android's 4" screen.

That was when I found that when I made earlier choose the "Manage Offline" option, it erased the movie file from my Android. First I thought this meant waiting for for it to download again (a half-hour wait?), but then found that it would stream just fine.

So we watched the rest of "The September Issue" on a 4" screen, with my Android streaming the movie flawlessly. We both like the movie: she for the fashion, me for the magazine business.

Nov 20, 2009

I do love the concept of Google's proposed Chrome OS, even if I am not sure I would use it. (It relies on an Internet connection, which a tenuous thing still in 2009, as I am finding with my Internet-needing iPod Touch.)

I do love the competing headlines, which have taken on a "Yah, Well Your Momma..." atmosphere:

Sep 03, 2008

I consider Opera to be the only mature Web browser, because it is so feature-rich. But due to its lack of marketshare, I sometimes have to fire up FireFox for certain Web sites or (heaven forbid!) that IE browser thrown in with Windows.

My first attempt to download Chrome failed, because Google wrote it to work only on the XP and Vista dialects of Windows -- and my desktop still runs the stable Windows 2000 OS. Who says Chrome is replacing the operating system?

After downloading it to my Vista-native HP notebook computer, Chrome offered to copy bookmarks from Firefox -- which, earlier, it had copied from Opera.

I was interested to see how much faster GMail and Google Docs would run in this wunderbrowser wihth its 80x faster V8 Javaengine, but nothing worked. Every Web site I visited displayed for a couple of seconds, and then Chrome's frowny-face folder icon blanked the site.

The same problem occurred for Engaget, GMail, Google Docs, CNN, and just about every other Web site I tried. The sole exception was Google Search. In the unPhotoShopped figure below, you can see the unhappy icon on every tab.

Jun 19, 2008

I have a new viewer for my PDF files: Google Docs, which now supports PDF files.

It must be embarassing for Adobe that I find it faster to view a PDF doc over the Internet in a Web browser than using Acrobat on my computer.

The drawback to Google Docs is that I have to first upload any PDF file I want to view through Docs. But uploading to Docs seemed faster than using FTP or email to transmit PDF files. For now, I uploaded all of my ebooks -- around 40 of them. A bulk uploader would have been helpful.

Mar 06, 2008

Yahoo Maps is muchly improved, with a user interface that is much, much nicer than that of Google Maps. The Google product seems stodgy in comparison. And, all its interactivity works with the Opera Web browser.

I find Yahoo Maps faster than Google, especially when displaying satellite images with roads overlaid. Yahoo Maps also knew my home position, where as Google doesn't.

However, some data is missing from Yahoo. For example, it could not find the Comfort Inn in a city I'll be in this weekend. OTOH, Google cluttered up the map with dozens of other hotels markers, so that I could not spot "my" hotel. That's because it was listed as "A" and because it was first, it got overlaid by all the other hotel markers in the area.

Mar 04, 2008

I had taken along an older notebook computer (should that be an "elder" notebook?) to get some work done on a short business trip. When I started it up, Windows complained of some error and refused to work.

How to get my writing done? Then I remembered: Google Apps. I had access to a nearby desktop computer, launched Google Docs, and wrote my thousand words.

Back home again, I didn't need to use a USB key to transfer the article from my aging notebook computer (whose wireless is flakey). I just accessed the article on my desktop computer through the Web browser.

Finally, a use for Google Docs. I'd tried it before, but found it an uncompelling replacement for my regular word processor, Atlantis from Rising Sun Solutions. It still isn't, but Docs is great as an emergency replacement.

Jan 24, 2008

I had been using FireFox with Google Mail, but today I noticed that GMail finally works with Opera. Before, I would get warnings that my favorite Web browser would not work with GMail, and then it truly wouldn't work.

Last night it occurred to me that Google Mail does have a significant advantage in one area, which might become increasingly important: indexing. For example, re-installing software that I downloaded, and now I need to hunt down the license number that was sent by email.

It's always been a painful wait to have Eudora find an email msg, because it holds 13 years of my mail. I haven't counted them all, but one folder alone -- press releases -- holds 12,000 messages going back to Jan, 2000. Other mailboxes are even bigger. Searching for an email in Eudora reminds me of doing hidden-line removal with CAD software in 1988 or waiting for Windows to boot in 2008.

Eudora has an indexing feature, as does Windows and other software. But you know the drawback: all that disc activity slows down the rest of the computer. In therms of Windows, I normally place documents in orderly folders, so I don't need Windows indexing -- which I've turned completely off in Vista.

This is one area where Google Mail is brilliant: Google does the indexing for you, on their computers. Searching email is fast; your computer is not slowed down by the indexing.

Jul 21, 2007

A group of German-led companies aims to create a multimedia search engine that tops Google.

Did Galileo, the European competitor to the America GPS satellite system, succeed? No, and Theseus will fail, too. You can tell by looking at the specs:

- EU approved.
- Subsidized by the German government.
- 22 partner organizations, companies, and universities, including SA and Siemens.
- Budget of nearly $300 million, of which more than half is government subsidy.
- Born out of the failed Quaero project, the search engine described by the then-president of France as "the answer to the global competitors of Google and Yahoo."

This project is not designed to replace Google. This is designed to hoodwink government into subsidizing jobs at profitable corporations. No wonder taxes keep going up in European nations.

Great new ideas are not generated when millions of Euros swirl about. (Think Microsoft.) Money suffocates the urgency that otherwise comes from the no-idea, no-food-on-the-table alternative.

There is no need to replace Google, other than as a salve for the wounded pride of some in the world's largest economic block. (Think Airbus A380.)

The name chosen for the project speaks its own prophecy: the mythological Theseus avoids getting lost in King Minos' maze by navigating through it with a thread. Today's Theseus is no one-man project bent on solving a problem out of desperation; no, today's Theseus is a committee designed to solve mythological problems by following the trail of Euros in the EU maze. And getting lost.

Jun 28, 2007

As Google yesterday announced that its Desktop software now runs on Linux, I realized that Google doesn't need to provide a Google-branded varient of the Linux operating system. All it needs to do is ensure that:

* All its desktop software runs on Linux.
* All its Web-based software runs in Linux-based Firefox.

Set up a nice Linux dialect like Ubantu on your notebook computer, and away you go: Word-compatible word processing, Excel-compatible spreadsheets, Gmail, Picasa, Maps, Earth, Sketchup, Warehouse, etc, etc. All of it running in the multiple workspaces that's standard with Linux.

Jun 22, 2007

Ever since VisiCalc (the first spreadsheet, which ran initially only on Apple II computers, and which drove sales of that machine), marketeers have been on the hunt for The Next Killer App -- a software so compelling that it drives sales of hardware and more software.

I think I just read about the New Killer App: Google Spreadsheets Live Data. Imagine a single spreadsheet function that returns Google search info:

=GoogleLookup("Vancouver"; "mayor")

The result is shown in a spreadsheet cell. And works only in Google's online spreadsheet. Another unique function retrieves financial data:

Mar 27, 2007

Float is how American Express made its profits in its early days. You would buy AmEx Travellers Cheques, and then days or weeks later use them for payment. In the meantime, AmEx got paid twice: once, when you paid a fee to buy the cheques, and then again from investing your cash until it had to pay the merchant (and perhaps earning a third fee?).

I wonder how much profit Google makes from float? That's the money it earns from advertisers, but doesn't pay out to us until our accounts have at least $100 in them. I make more than $100 each month from AdSense, so there isn't much float there.

But after 1.5 years in Goggle's Book Search Partner Program, I've made just $17.92 -- which means I can expect to be paid after about ten years. By then, they'll have raised the limit to $200, and I'll have to wait another ten years, and on it goes.

I am guessing that Google needs to set aside that $17.92 for accounting purposes. But in the meantime, it can invest the float, and profit from the investment. Google pays me no interest for my cash that it keeps from me.

Multiply $17.92 by thousands (millions?) of under-$100 accounts, and suddenly we're talking real money -- some of which Google might never pay out. I haven't read anywhere anyone wondering about the size of Google's float. But it struck home when I read a blogger complaining of never being paid by Google, because over the years they kept raising the payout bar on her.

Perhaps someone might want to take up the task of calculating how much of Google's financial power comes from cleverly employing its customers' float. I wonder if Google sets the payout limit on the basis of how much float they need?

Feb 08, 2007

One of the puzzles of this era is why Google gets it and Microsoft doesn't (cf: Origami, Zune, TabletPC, MobileWindows, Live, Vista).

I've come to the conclusion that this is the reason: when a Google programmer creates a new features, he asks himself, "How do I want it to work?" When a Microsoft programmers creates the new feature, he asks, "How does a user want it to work?"

As an author of over 100 books about computer software, I have come to learn that it is better to write for the specific person (me) than for the amorphous person (everyone).

Hence the popularity of my best-selling "The Illustrated AutoCAD Quick Reference" series of books. (This is the only AutoCAD book I ever refer to.) I created the page design to suit me, so that I could quickly look up and find information about specific commands.

If I were to write the book for everyone else, then I would lose focus, because I don't know what everyone else wants. The result is a less useful book, and so a book that does not sell as well. You could call it "design by committee."

And that's what has happened to Microsoft. Their software no longer functions usefully. Perhaps the best example was when one version of Word counted words slowly. Microsoft countered that only computer journalists were worried about word counts. This showed how out of touch Microsoft is; my three kids need to hand papers to their teachers with specific word counts. Any Microsoft employee who would have written the software to suit themselves would have ensured that word-counts were near instant.

(Speaking of which, the latest update of the Atlantis word processor features a real-time word count feature on the status bar.)

I bounce my theory off industry execs, and they fine tune it for me. One suggested that perhaps Microsoft programmers do write features for themselves, but they are out of step with the rest of the world. He noted that his Treo-like phone (made by HTC) was a beautiful piece of hardware, but was burdened by Microsoft's mobile Windows running on it. Same with a Compaq iPaq he had been given: he now only uses it for Internet access, because all other Microsoft-designed PDA functions are too frustrating to use.

In contrast, the PalmPilot was successful, because Jeff Hawkins designed it to suit himself. Apple products are successful, because Steve Jobs designs them to suit himself.

Jan 23, 2007

With my daughter competing in a regional figure skating competition, I wanted to make sure I know the route to the ice arena, one I had been to just once before. I found Google remarkably clueless.

Attempt 1: My first try was with Google Maps, to show me the route. When I entered my home address and "Twin Rinks, Chilliwack, BC", Google Maps claimed it didn't know what I meant by "Twin Rinks":

We could not understand the location "Twin Rinks, Chilliwack, BC"

Attempt 2: Get the street address, I thought. I copy and pasted "Twin Rinks, Chilliwack, BC" into the main Google search engine. It returned the following Local Result:

Twin Rinks Ice Arena - 1.8 km NW - 8550 Young, Chilliwack, BC, Canada

I entered the street address into Google Maps, but it routed me north of the #1 freeway, when I knew the rinks were south of the freeway.

Attempt 3: I returned to the results from the search engine. The next item was "City of Chilliwack - Twin Rinks Schedule - Skate Schedule ...", which I clicked to find the "5745 Tyson Rd" address on this Chilliwack Web page.

When I told my wife, she replied, "I think I have the address in my purse."

Dec 06, 2006

Ever wonder why text, and not pretty pictures and pulsating colors, like many of the banner ads from non-Google sources?

Text is highly efficient. It lets Google push millions of ads with far less computing overhead and through thinner networking pipes than is needed with image-based ads -- whether animated GIFs or heavyduty Flash. Conversely, Google can ship many, many more ads through the same Internet facilities than can proponents of fat ads.

(Also, text ads are less annoying to users than dancing icons. And, the brevity of the text ads makes them more likely to be read.)

I wonder if the founders learned that from the travel industry. Many travel agents use plain terminals that show green text on black background; even Canada's largest electronics chain, FutureShop, continues to use such terminals. The reason: extremely efficient network operations. It takes very little to push characters of text. If it costs less, then there are higher profits to be had.

Here's how efficient: think back to the original PalmPilot 1000. It had just 0.1MB of RAM, yet could hold thousands of addresses, appointments, et al.

Contrast that with MP3 music files. 0.1MB is enough memory for six seconds of music. Or highly compressed, low resolution video: 0.1MB is sufficient for one second of video.

Oct 04, 2006

A famous Doonsbury cartoon has a college professor lecturing his dis-interested students. Frustrated, he begins to spout nonsense, among them "White is black." Or maybe the cartoon was warning about the currently-fashionable relativism movement -- where there is no such thing as absolute truth. (Is that absolutely true?)

In recent weeks, Google's marketing department has been parading its CEO in front of the media. You've probably seen the front covers of Time and Fortune, read about the speeches by Eric Schmidt.

(Side note: Notice that the business-suited Schmidt is being placed in the foreground, with attention over Google's two lab-coated founders being toned-down. Also note: Google's let's-see-what-sticks and forever-in-beta development method is now being touted both as chaotic and positive.)

Reuters reports on Mr Schmidt claiming that Google will provide Truth Predictor software for voters to "check seemingly factual statements against historical data to see to see if [politicians] were correct."

I could see this being helpful for fence-sitters who are not sure which way to vote. The system would not help my mother-in-law, who votes the opposite to her husband. But it would appear Mr Schmidt has not learned the lessons of Wikipedia: beliefs are stronger than facts.

He says, "Many of the politicians don't actually understand the phenomenon of the Internet very well." While true, political operatives do understand Web sites, Weblogs, mass emailings, and other Internet-enabled campaign tools.

But don't limit the list of Internet-unawarees to politicians. There will be more information for voters, but more information also means more chaotic information, and it won't have to come from a Google beta.

Sep 04, 2006

Intermedia.NET ships a great press release that pokes holes in the Google bubble. (The company uses Microsoft Exchange to host for small and medium businesses, so they have an interest at defeating the Googlenaut.)

Commentators have not had a favorable reaction to the new Google Apps for Your Domain service, which promises to read all your documents for Google's own amusement and profit. Here's the points that Intermedia makes, which bare consideration:

- Latent support: Clients cannot pick up a phone and get support 24 hours a day; instead, Google makes you fill out a form and wait.
- No wireless: no access via BlackBerry, Treo, Q, etc.
- No privacy: Google looks at all emails and documents stored with them.
- Interrupted applications: Google feeds customers ads for online poker sites and pills to combat ED.
- No uptime guarantee: Google does not specify the percentage of time when email will be up and running.

If you go into Google Apps for Your Domain, read the terms of use and you know what to expect; OTOH, you might not know that you could expect better service than what Google offers.

May 19, 2006

I make a chunk of change each month from running Google ads on this and my other Web properties. How much? Let's say enough that Google sends me a cheque each month.

I'm also participating in Google Print. That's where publishers can have their books hosted by Google's search engine. The usual things apply: when people search for passages in books, ads are displayed and there are links to buying the whole book. Except that they have to use Google Print for seaching.

After ten months of my books being live on Google Print (after taking a half-year to get live), I've made $8.12 -- not enough yet to get paid.

After reading an anlysis by Bill Trancer, I now understand. He found that Google Print gets 0.25% of all Google traffic. Divide my $8 by 0.0025 (and multiply by .8) and I'd've made $2,600 -- if Google Print were linked to Google Search.

But it's not. I've complained to Google, and Google has replied, in its stilted "official" prose, that they're working on it.

B.F. explains why things like boundaries don't line up on Google Earth:

You complained that the Canada-US boundary does not follow the 49th parallel and is not a straight line in Google Earch. You are only partially correct. I agree Google Earth sometimes does not draw the border correctly (take a look at the Peace Arch at the Blaine crossing).

On the other hand, contrary to poular opinion, the long, straight portion of the Canada-US border is not quite straight and does not follow the 49th parallel. Yes, that was the intent and the wording of the original treaty.

However, two problems arose:

1. They assumed the world is round. It isn't; the diameter through the poles is a couple of hundred miles less than the diameter at the equator, and it is fatter south of the equator than north of it, sort of like a pear. Technically the earth is a "geoid", which means "earth-shaped".

2. Item 1 was compounded by surveying errors.

When the problem became apparent, both countries ageeed that the simplest solutuion was to re-define the border as being a series of straight lines that connected the existing 1,000 obelisk-shaped markers all along the border.

The "49th parallel" section of the border actually wanders north and south of the parallel by an average of 90 yards or so. For example, Monument 48 is located on the Columbia Valley Highway south of Cultus Lake. It is actually south of the 49th parallel at north 48 degrees 59 minutes 55.6 seconds.

I have 1950's vintage government topographical maps of this area that show it at 49-00-00, whereas the current version of the same map locates it correctly. Interestingly, the monuments furthest north of 49 are just south of Abbotsford Airport.

Jan 31, 2006

The China version of Google is at www.google.cn. Try entering an innoucous phrases like "tiananmen" and "Jesus Christ", and then compare the difference in search results from the American version at www.google.com. The differences are particularly dramatic when you click the Images option.

For "Jesus Christ," Google.cn allows only eight images thruough their CensorWare, of which six are incorrect. In contrast, Google.com presents 116,000 images for the same search term.

Jan 08, 2006

After all the hype, the Google announcements at CES were sad: Google Pack and Google Video.

I can see why the Google CEO was wary about releasing Pack; it isn't a big deal, especially with it being limited to running on Microsoft's current OS. To make it significant, it should have been made work on all three OSs -- that would have been a better PR move. At least they could'v'e named it Google Shovelware, after seeing the six-month version of Norton software included. Six months of security? I see the handprints of marketing people all over that one.

In any case, Pack suffers from the computing Catch-22: those who know about the software in the Pack collection already run most components; those who need it won't know enough to download it. Windows Supersite discusses each program in more detail, point out the pros and cons of each -- and there are many cons.

After you've viewed a dozen funny free videos, Video quickly becomes tedious. In its rush to sell more hardware and software, the industry has lost sight of why some entertainment works and some doesn't: the concentration factor:
- Listening to music requires very little concentration; hence, the popularity of music devices. Also, music has a universal format, MP3.
- Reading requires some concentration; I speed read by skipping entire sentances, but I can also back up if I miss a point. More accurately, reading occurs at a completey variable speed.
- Listening to talk (ie podcasts and talk radio) requires more concentration, because missing a single word can lose the entire context of the discussion.
- Movies require the most concentration, because (1) your eyes (and body) have to be directed to one location (mobility is restricted) and (2) you have to concentrate on the talk. Plus (3) there is no universal format, but a confusing litany of acronyms. In any case, PVRs have already shows that video-on-the-go is a failure.

At least I was dead-right on my counter-prediction that there would be no Google PC. So they showed MIT's $100 computer. I predict that the project won't get off the ground, because it only makes sense for these self-interested parties:
- those who benefit PR-wise by having their names associated with it.
- those who benefit from collecting donations for developing the device.
- there is probably another group that I can't think of right now, but it's not the intended recipients. For them, ask yourself this question: "What could possibly go wrong?"

I am willing to bet that Google showed off the $100 MIT computer at CES just to maintain the myth that they Do No Evil (cf. China for counter example).

The sad part is that I think Google is starting to lose its way. Their PR machine hypes the fact that employees are expected to spend one day a week on their own projects. (I wonder how many just take the day off work.) Yet, the short list under Labs is depressing: so few ideas, and all of them so incomplete. (Transit in Portland? Yuk, yuk.) It's starting to remind me of Microsoft Research: so many billions wasted each year on virtually nil practical output.

And what's with this obsession on developing social networking software? Like it doesn't exist yet? I'll be glad when this phase of geek infactuation passes.

Then there is the whole issue of leaching. Earlier this millenium, software companies cut their costs by hiring overseas programmer and support staff (outsourcing). Now they are further cutting their costs (= increasing profits for shareholders) by leaching off the free software community. "Hey guys, if you write code for free, we'll sell it (and keep the $$$ for ourselves)."

Jan 03, 2006

Techn industry writers are tittering at the thought of a cheap, Google-branded PC being announced this Friday during Larry Page's keynote address at CES. (He a Google co-founder.) Here's the New York Times writer, Sallie Hofmeister: "The machine [sold by Walmart or other retailers] would run an operating system created by Google, not Microsoft's Windows..."

How does this fit in with Google's aim of organizing the world's information? It doesn't. You won't see a Google PC, and here's why:
- a cheap PC isn't the same as free, which all of Google's consumer offerings are.
- for the PC to be free, it would have to display ads, which requires a full-time Internet connection, which not enough consumers have yet (cf. Alibre).
- the "non-Windows" operating system is unlikely to be better at organizing information than any other operating system. although it might be better at storing it.
- brand-new operating systems are too buggy to unleash on consumers (cf. Windows).
- Google has too few apps running on Linux and Mac OS -- heck, even support for non-IE browsers is sad -- to have an entire suite of data organization apps running on the mythical GoogleOS.
- Even if Google has written its own operating system and has rewritten all its apps (Picasa, Earth, browser, etc), consumers wouldn't go for it, because then they would be hosting two PCs (cf. bombs like the Media Center PC and TabletPC), and one PC is already enough of a headache and cost-drain.

The NYT staff writer did come up with a more likely scenerio:

Bear Stearns analysts speculated ... that consumers would soon see something called "Google Cubes" -- a small hardware box that could allow users to move songs, videos and other digital files between their computers and TV sets.

The concept is not new; for example, a PocketPC, such as HP's iPaq with built-in wireless networking and free MP3 playback software can be attached to any stereo system in the house, and stream music files from the home's desktop computer and its massive hard drives.

Selling a Google-branded consumer device makes more sense than a PC, just as Apple has become a consumer products market leader with its iPod brand. But would the device answer the question Google is posing: "How does it help organize the world's information?" Perhaps a consumer device that organizes all (common) files: photographs, movies, music, office data, Web sites, email, blogs, and so on.

Dec 20, 2005

Lexar makes flash memory cards for cameras and USB drives (thumbdrives). It's now including Google's toolbar and search applications to its USB flash drives, called JumpDrives, which they'll start selling in January.

Lexar admits that anyone can get the Google apps free off the Internet. So here's the reason Lexar thinks the bundling is a good idea:

Customers who use a JumpDrive would plug the device into a USB port on their computer, where they can choose to automatically install Google products. Lexar said it expects the offering to make it easier for users to search documents, photos, music and other data stored on their JumpDrive.

Lessee. I'm in the store, looking to buy a thumbdrive. Am I going to buy Lexar brand because it includes Google software? No, I going to buy the cheapest one. Or maybe the one that looks the nicest (or most macho).

And am I really going to need to search my thumbdrive to look for files? We're talking only of 2GB (max) of storage, usually for a specific purpose, such as transferring files between computers (hey, SneakerNet is back!) or backing up crucial files.

No, this is more about Lexar hitching its wagon to the current buzz, the Google Economy. The press release notes that one party had to pay the other some money: "financial terms ... were not disclosed". I am guessing Google is subsidizing Lexar to carry their software? Or is Lexar paying Google to include a marketing bonus to help distinguish their products from an otherwise unremarkable market?

Nov 20, 2005

It's always good to read a fellow journalist unwinding Microsoft spin, and Cringely does it well on the two supposedly-leaked Microsoft memos. Here's a sample:

But I have to say that Gates or Ozzie or whoever actually wrote these documents has done a very effective job of differentiating the company roles in a way that makes Google appear to be the bad guy, and Microsoft appear to be the good guy.

Google is going to develop and deploy Internet services while Microsoft is going to ENABLE the deployment of such services BY ITS DEVELOPER PARTNERS. This makes Google the would-be monopolist.

Oct 13, 2005

You know a product is in trouble when the company sends out an email saying it's not. Google recently sent an email to publishers, like me, saying:

There have been some incorrect characterizations about this program in the press, and we want to be sure you have a clear understanding of the program....

Some groups were charging Google with bypassing copyrights through the digitizing of books from libraries. The Google Print Team emphasizes this is not the case:

Our goal is to help people discover books online, not read them online; a user who finds a copyrighted books that was scanned through the Library Project can't view even a single page from this book, unless the copyright holder has given us explicit permission through the Publisher Program to show more.

Google Books has other problems, however, such as being painfully slow in getting books digitized and into its servers. For me, however, it was the concern that 20% of the content of each book is made available at a time. Twenty percent is far too large, amounting to 80 pages of a typical 400-page book. That caused me to cut way back on the number of my ebooks that I exposed through Google.

The benefit of Google Booksto publishers is twofold: their books are exposed to people searching with Google, and they get a chance to make some $$$ by (1) people clicking on Google Ads associated with the book, and (2) buying the book outright.

Oct 10, 2005

Stephen Arnold spent the last year researcing Google's patents for his new US$180 PDF ebook, “The Google Legacy.” From examining the patents, he thinks he knows where Google is headed, and how it will outfox Microsoft by changing the focus of computing from the desktop to the network (just as Microsoft outfoxed IBM by changing the focus from the data center to the desktop.)

Some of his points are:
- Google has distributed data centers (the basis of its search engines).
- Google is buying unused fiber optic transmission cables.
- Google is interested in wireless networking.
- Google’s RTG implements 70% of the functions of Microsoft's Office.
- Google Maps has technology that could compete with Microsoft’s PowerPoint.
- Google has re-coded Linux to meet its needs.
- the Googleplex could expanded indefinitely.
- Like IBM, Google merges hardware and software.
- Users on the virtual network won’t need to backup, or setup, or restore (Gmail this week got a new, automatic save feature).

"In a broader sense, Arnold believes Google is building a 'patent fence around search' technology as the firm moves to codify its unique competitive advantage. An ultimate goal of the firm is to deliver completely individualized ads to users."

Aug 30, 2005

Jason Kottke at kottke.org describes what a WebOS would need to be capable of. The most important aspect is that you and I can continue working with applications even when the computer is not connected to the Internet -- which requires a sophisticated local cache.

Gee, sounds like Windows! But the idea, of course, is to end Microsoft's dominance. As well as create a programming environment where developers no longer need to write a Windows version and a Web version.

Many of us already use a a form of Internet-access/local-cache: MP3 playack software. The songs are downloaded and then cached locally, as is CDDB information.

Aug 26, 2005

Here is a classroom exercise for editors: The cover story of last month's Fortune magazine is about how Google's software is scaring (apparently) Microsoft into reacting.

Questions

Q: As editor, what picture do you put on the cover?
Q: How do you word the cover headline? (Fortune's answer is down below.)

(I get Fortune magazine because I enjoy the writing style, as well as learn stuff about business. In the last year, however, I have noticed that articles have become subtle puff pieces. The change parallels the decline in advertising; Microsoft is an advertiser with Fortune, and Google is not.)

Answers

A: Fortune places a picture of a worried-looking Bill Gates on the cover. The headline reads, "Why Google Scares Gates."

The wording of the headline is interesting. Notice how Google is made distant by reference to its corporate name, while Microsoft is personalized through the name of its best-known employee.

The cover subhead, toc (table of contents), and article use the same technique. Here they are:

Cover subhead: "It's not just web search. Google is attacking Microsoft on its own turf: your PC. How Gates is fighting back."

This subhead is worded confusingly: Gates is protecting our PCs against attack by Google? Also, the wording ties in nicely with Microsoft's attempt to make its software seem safer from malware. Perhaps Microsoft marketing wrote the subhead on behalf of Fortune editors.

TOC entry: "Gates vs Google. The Microsoft chairman is on a mission to build a Google killer. Why? The darling of search is moving into software -- and that's Microsoft's turf."

Software is Microsoft's turf? (Tell that to Sun, Oracle, SAP, Autodesk, et al.) Perhaps Microsoft is relaunching its urge to be a monopoly.

Story title: "Search and Destroy."

The article shows pictures of the founder of Microsoft in color (but looking under attack), and the founders of Google in grayscale (but looking happy). I take it we're to root for Underdog Microsoft.

Aug 16, 2005

(Until then, Google Print worked only with printed books. I am guessing they hired a scanning and digitizing firm in India to rip out the pages and scan/digitize them to some raster format.)

I figured that converting PDF files to Google's database would be a trivial exercise, especially my short e-books, which are in the range of 100-250 pages. But something at the Google end screwd up majorly. Google, tight-lipped as always, isn't saying what the problem is, but did send out apology packets to publishers, such as myself. I now have a Google maniquin desktop clock. With bendable arms and legs. Cute.

It's now been seven months. In the last month, one of my e-books was processed, and today I notice three more. The Google Print process goes through four stages:

1. Upload -- set up the account, rename the PDF files with their ISBNs, and upload them to Google. This step took me an hour or two.
2. Pending -- the PDF files sit on some server, waiting processing. This step has taken Google seven months.
3. Processed -- the PDF files are converted to Google format, probably a combination of JPEG and database code that links the page images with searchable text.
4. Live -- the book is available on the Internet, and appears at the top of Google's search results.

One of my print books "Using AutoCAD 2005" (Autodesk Press) is available on Google Print, if you are interested in seeing what it looks like: click here. Discouragingly enough, the book does not appear when words such as "AutoCAD", "Using AutoCAD", or "AutoCAD 2005" are entered into Google's seach engine -- only the compete title works, "Using AutoCAD 2005".

(You cannot view some pages without first signing in with some sort of Google account, such as GMail. Google claims the reason is that the books are under copyright. The real reason, I suspect, is to better track your viewing habits.)

May 23, 2005

Google is touted as developing a computing platform that ignores the operating system -- completing the work that Netscape began. Netscape is said to have failed, because they didn't accomplish their mission; but their idea of OS-independence lives on.

(The idea is to eliminate Microsoft from the equation by nullifying one of its primary advantges, Windows APIs. Microsoft's other advantage is its exclusive-install agreements with PC vendors, but that is being nullified as the world moves beyond PCs and onto cell phones, media players, digital cameras, and other non-PC devices. You can google for stuff on a PalmOS browser, a Mac browser, a Linux browser, and so on.)

There is no such thing as freedom. Become free of one, you become beholden to another; even anarchists are chained to their philosophy. So too with the promise of the browser freeing us from OS-dependency: we now become dependent on the browser. For proof, take an older Web browser to maps.google.com and you are reprimanded:

Eventually, Google will find it inefficient to support six browsers and will "enhance the browsing experience" by supporting just one browser -- just like the many software vendors who dropped support for non-Windows operating systems over the last decade. At some point in the future, the rallying cry will become, "Free us from the browser monopoly!"